A Vote for Zhirinovsky Was a Vote for Yeltsin : Russia: If the reformers are to triumph, they must talk to the hurting and close the compassion gap. That is, be more the politician.

Vassily, the driver who picked up me and a friend at the Sheremetyevo Airport last Sunday, had already cast his ballot. “Our Vassily here voted for Zhirinovsky,” he announced with a sigh of resignation as we got into his Volga sedan. Family man in his late 50s and typical of the dignified, non-drinking segment of the Moscow working class, Vassily was moonlighting to supplement his monthly paycheck of about $50.

“Why did you do that, Vassily?” my companion asked.

“Zhirinovsky will see to it that people like me receive their fair share of the privatization,” he responded curtly. “Ours is a rich country--and look at me. I have worked all my life, and I’ve got nothing to show for it.”

I asked Vassily if he had voted for the constitution. “Sure, I did--our Patriarch Alexis II and the president said I should.”

“And who did you vote for in your district?”

“I can’t remember his name, but I read he was a businessman, so I thought a businessman’s got to have a head on his shoulders, and I voted for him.”

This week, I have heard similar exchanges between the intelligentsia and the people over and over again as the election returns drifted in. What was most striking is that none of Vladimir V. Zhirinovsky’s supporters thought that by casting their ballots for this reincarnation of Chaplin’s Great Dictator they were voting against Boris N. Yeltsin.

But the campaign leading up to last Sunday’s parliamentary elections and referendum on a new constitution, and its outcome, laid bare the reformers’ crucial errors, which lie, as it so often happens in politics, not so much in substance as in rhetoric and style.

The most disaffected groups in Russia today are those with low income--the Vassilys--and those who live a great distance from the center. The provinces, especially the faraway provinces of Siberia and Far East, suffer the greatest from the grave deterioration of their traditional links with Moscow and other centers of European Russia. Similarly, the erosion of income among wage earners, civilian and military, has hit hardest in the provinces, where industrial diversification is low.

It was from among these ranks that Zhirinovsky drew his greatest support--the people who have suffered the most from the economic reforms, who were disillusioned with communism, and who, despite their humble educations, felt compelled to brave bitter weather and a confusing election system to use the ballot box to make their point.

And it is precisely this segment of the electorate that the reformers, who virtually control television and the mass media, have failed to address--with the notable exception of Yeltsin.

The consequences of this neglect were clear in the Murmansk region. There, Zhirinovsky came first on the party slate, the constitution was approved by 60% of the electorate, and Yeltsin’s foreign minister, Andrei V. Kozyrev, a favorite target of Zhirinovsky’s vitriol, won the right to represent the region in the new Duma. In effect, many who voted for Zhirinovsky voted for Yeltsin as well.

This apparent absurdity begs a question: Why didn’t Zhirinovsky’s supporters see the incongruity of their vote for the Russian nationalist and their vote for the document that gives Yeltsin and his government decisive powers?

While Yeltsin is known as much for his vacillation, it is his slam-bang decisiveness that captures the popular imagination or, as in the case of the shelling of the White House, overwhelms it. In a polity where such surprises begin to look like the norm, even the most outlandishly aggressive pronouncements of a Zhirinovsky appear within the bounds of acceptable political behavior. In Moscow proper, the campaign against the “persons of Caucasian nationality,” brutally waged by the city’s mayor and Yeltsin ally, Yuri M. Luzhkov, also contributed to making Zhirinovsky’s bombastic style more acceptable.

Furthermore, the crude attempts by Yeltsin’s spokesman, Vladimir F. Shumeiko, to stifle debate on the draft constitution, by denying TV access to Duma candidates opposed to the document, made Zhirinovsky’s brazen threats against the press seem less of an anomaly. Notably, Yeltsin did not remove Shumeiko even after his actions provoked a universal outcry.

Either because he anticipated a hostile Parliament or hoped for a divided one too weak to get in his way, Yeltsin early on distanced himself from the parliamentary campaign. The only person capable of mobilizing the majority of the country’s population, he decoupled himself from the campaign two days before the election by throwing the weight of his authority behind the referendum on the constitution. This downgraded the status of the parliamentary elections, making ballot-box “experimentation” more probable.

The pro-reform party, Russia’s Choice, and its leader, Yegor T. Gaidar, were the principal victims of Yeltsin’s aloofness. Yet, they also significantly contributed to their own downfall by failing to communicate with the victims of their reforms. Gaidar’s identification with “shock therapy,” his “antiseptic” technocratic style, the ambience of a privileged member of the Moscow intelligentsia that he projects in his public appearances, his inability to explain his program in simple terms--all combined to make him a scapegoat for Zhirinovsky’s startling success.

The most odious role in the reformers’ rout belongs, paradoxically, to the state-controlled television, which understood its marching orders to give as much exposure as possible to Gaidar while fastidiously limiting editorial commentary on party programs. As a result, Gaidar, as well as other reformers, were left to fend for themselves, unassisted by the independent press in articulating their complicated message.

Zhirinovsky, who unlike the reformers had the experience of running a national campaign in 1991, was a natural beneficiary. He flooded the TV screen with paid and unpaid political advertising, unfiltered by editorial commentary or reportorial challenge.

Still, the generally low voter turnout blunts the sting of the parliamentary results. Zhirinovsky’s party is unlikely to come anywhere near achieving a decisive plurality in the Duma. The constitution, its numerous flaws notwithstanding, has been adopted. And Yeltsin’s mandate has been renewed, even by those voters who opted for Zhirinovsky.

As important, Yeltsin and the reformers were taught a lesson in democratic politics. The president must learn to build broad-based coalitions, avoid, rather than encourage, political polarization and abandon his erratic slam-bang political style. Above all, he must concentrate on party-building at the grass roots and regional level. Without such organization, Yeltsin may wake up one day to realize that his charisma has passed on to a less scrupulous populist, who would be vested with the awesome power Yeltsin designed for himself in the constitution. On Wednesday, Yeltsin sought to reassure Vice President Al Gore, saying he was planning to found a “presidential” party.

For their part, the reformers must abandon their elitist style and look for their leaders among the politicians who have--not unlike their protector Yeltsin--the capacity to identify with provincial constituencies and members of humbler social classes. In short, they must learn compassion.

The spectacular showing of the Women’s Party indicates that any political movement in Russia, if it aspires to represent the nation, must bridge the compassion gap.*